The long shot motorcycle fix that I was optimistic about in the last post did not work out unfortunately! However, like my favorite sport coach, John Wooden, said, “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.” In the true spirit of making the best of my situation I have decided to continue my overland journey to the end of the world. This time instead by bus. No flights for this guy!
Getting my bike to Buenos Aires for an eventual flight home.These guys were super helpful despite the long shot attempt not working.
I began my over 50-hour bus journey in Buenos Aires and headed south over the span of three different days. This involved three different buses, none of which I booked in advance, and varying layover durations. My first layover dropped me in San Antonio Oeste right on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. I had assumed when booking that is town was a larger city since it is what an internet search has suggested. This, however, was not the case. Instead, I was dropped at an abandoned train platform and not even at a bus station. Luckily, I had about 2 hours until my connecting bus so I started figuring out where I needed to go. The train station looked like it only functioned on certain days of the week and this wasn’t one of them so I couldn’t get into the station building to see if there was any information there. So at 5 in the morning, I started wandering to different potential bus stations that Google Maps research has provided. Luckily, the town was pretty small so it wouldn’t take long to find out if I needed a new plan. After checking all my options and talking to an older local gentleman I determined I needed to head south to the next town where they had an actual bus station in which I could buy my next bus ticket at. Thankfully, there was a single taxi cleaning out his cab for the start of the day near the train station and he took me 15km to the bigger station for the equivalent of $4.50. I caught my bus with maybe 30 minutes to spare. The next transfer was supposed to be a 2-hour layover. By the time we had gotten to the transfer location after multiple delays I hopped off the bus just in time to use the bathroom and purchase a ticket and hop on the next bus as the last to board! Perfect timing!
Searching for drugs in my backpack.The scenic ride into Ushuaia.Ushuaia!Sunset from the bus window.
If you’re wondering where I slept during all of this, the answer is on the bus. They seats recline fairly far and most buses have a footrest that can be set fully horizontal built into most of the seats. My last bus took me into Chile and back out into Argentina again. It also took me on a fairy across the Strait of Magellan. Eventually three days after departing and 1,250 miles later I arrived at the end of the world, Ushuaia! I accomplished my overland goal albeit not via the originally intended method of transportation, but that still one heck of a road trip!
Cruise Views!Catching crabs.Underwhelming photo of wild penguins!The famous lighthouse.
I booked a cruise through the Beagle Channel for the morning and then went and explored the city and grabbed some dinner before heading to bed in my hostel. The next morning, I headed to the docks and began my journey through the Beagle Channel with a bunch of other tourists. The cruise took us past a famous lighthouse with sea lions sunbathing on the rocks around it. Next, we continued through the channel seeing Puerto Williams which has a greater claim to actually being the end of the world. Eventually we made it to the farthest destination on the cruise, Isla Martillo. Isla Martillo is famous for having a penguin colony there. Since I cheaped out I didn’t pay for the expensive tour that takes you as a small group to the island and actually allows you to get off the boat and walk near the penguins. Instead, my boat pulled up close and we got to take some photos from afar. There weren’t as many penguins with it being the beginning of the season here for them, but regardless I got to see some penguins in the wild!
Since my motorcycle is staged and ready to fly in Buenos Aires there is more fun to be had ahead! When life gives you lemons you visit countries and visit the famous Iguazu Falls. The rest of the traveling should be a lot easier now that I will allow myself to fly since I have completed the greatest north-south roadtrip of my life! God is good!
Since leaving La Paz I’ve run into several difficulties. For example, in Bolivia, a lot of gas stations do not sell to foreigners. The gas stations that do sell to foreigners do so at a much higher rate than the government subsidized rate for the locals. This was extremely frustrating and caused me to use my backup fuel can at least once.
Waiting for gas…Black market exchange rate
Problems followed me as I entered Argentina. I unknowingly entered Argentina during one of the busiest tourist holidays of the year and many people were traveling. That compounded with corruption and an upcoming election led to several gas stations being completely out of gas. I used my spare fuel can to barely make to a gas station that still had gas. Even then I had to wait in line for over an hour just to fill my tank. Soon after this, I realized the ATMs only exchange at the “official” government rate of 350 Argentinian pesos to 1 USD. Exchanging on the black market yielded me approximately 935 Argentinian pesos to 1 USD. Just another further complication in trying to navigate the political landscape.
Sad day…UN supporting the elections
Things took a turn for the worse the morning after a 14-hour hard ride the day before. The bike wouldn’t start. The oil level was super low. After filling it and getting some help from the mechanic above I got it pop started. It felt a little off, but it was running and the more I rode it around the more oil got spread throughout the engine components and the better it sounded. I thought I was in the clear. But after only a couple hours of riding I had lost most of my oil out of the air box bleeder hose. I filled and pop started it one more time to get myself out of the middle of nowhere and to a town with a mechanic. The mechanics there knew right away that it was probably an issue with the piston. If that was the case it would explain oil getting past a damaged piston. Not what I wanted to hear… I knew this could be trouble.
I was pretty frustrated when the mechanic didn’t show up until 1pm because he was apparently arguing with the local police to get his own personal motorcycle unimpounded. As soon as he returned from that he promptly went on a 2 hour lunch. I was pretty mad. I just sat at this shop all day and finally by 7pm we got the motor head off and found the cylinder and piston were indeed damaged. They would need to be replaced. Unfortunately for me, my motorcycle isn’t sold in Argentina. However, there is another Honda, the CBR300, which shares the same cylinder and piston. He ordered these parts off of what I would compare to a cross between Amazon and eBay. It’s a pretty common website in a lot of South American countries. He apparently didn’t have an account for this website and had to have his friend or ex-wife or something order the parts for him. He told me the parts would take 4 or so days to get here. Not ideal, but at least I’m getting the parts. On the day the parts are supposed to show up they don’t… The mechanic makes some calls and we wait one more day, which is infuriating to me because I don’t have a lot of free time. The next morning he tells me the parts don’t exist because they are out of stock in Argentina. I was fuming. If he actually had an account for this website he could have ordered the parts himself and likely would have found this out before waiting for the delivery date to pass.
Essentially back at square one with a bunch of burned time I immediately packed up my backpack and grabbed the damaged cylinder and piston and hopped on a night bus to Buenos Aires. I arrived at 6:30am and immediately started walking to get myself in the vicinity of all the biggest motorcycle shops to begin my search when they opened. I didn’t have a lot of luck. One shop said they might be able to replace it and they drove me to a machine shop to get their opinion. It was far from a sure thing and it would be about a week until it could get completed. I kept searching for the new replacement parts in the meantime. No luck! It seems they don’t exist in Argentina and Argentina is notorious for a long and frustrating import process. Part dealers were quoting 30-60 days, which I don’t have, to get me the parts I needed. Eventually, I settled on a racing shop that seemed to think they could repair my damaged cylinder and then modify a piston from a local Honda XRE300 to use on my Honda CRF300L. They seemed pretty smart and they spoke English which helped figure out a plan. They called my mechanic back at the breakdown location and ran him through the plan and ensured he would be able to properly adjust the engine to receive the modified piston. Sounds like it might just work! So I left the damaged parts with them so they could immediately start working on it. In the meantime, I continued to search and came up empty-handed on finding new parts. Waiting it is…
While this isn’t the solution or timing I wanted, I have to admit I wouldn’t have ever come to Buenos Aires if it wasn’t for this. Buenos Aires has been a wonderful break from the hard traveling and quick pace on the motorcycle. I’ve met some interesting characters at my hostel ($10 a night) here. I met a Jewish Brazilian who speaks 10 languages and is going to medical school here. I met a Russian who was a sniper in the reserves but deserted when the war with Ukraine broke out. Some very worldly and cultured conversations about what is going on in the world right now. It’s been interesting to hear about the election happening here as well. It’s like watching an alternate reality unfolding as I put myself in the Argentinian’s shoes.
While I have been waiting for the parts to be repaired I have been thinking a lot about how to make some lemonade out of all these recent lemons. I decided to go to a soccer game at the famous La Bombonera stadium in Buenos Aires and I couldn’t have made a better decision.
Tickets normally cost around $160 for foreigners trying to go since the tickets are only available to club members and are always sold out. I figured I would see if I could find myself a deal. I found a couple options online, but I ended up haggling a Facebook marketplace guy down to $60. When I went to pickup the ticket it turned out to just be this young kid. He was being really weird at McDonalds, where we met, about the ticket. He wanted to be very inconspicuous and said the fans want to rob him for the ticket and honestly I thought he was fun of crap, but I grabbed the ticket and gave it a quick look, and from my very limited knowledge it seemed legit. It was a plastic card with the game information printed on it which matched up form what I had seen on the internet. So I gave him the money and grabbed the ticket and left. I should have looked at the card more closely, but I’ll admit I bought into his inconspicuous behavior. Then I rode the bus back to the hostel. At the hostel, I looked at the ticket and realized the year on it had been scratched and was written poorly in ink a 3 over where it probably used to say 2022. I’m assuming I bought last year’s ticket…
After buying a $6 jersey from a street vendor I went to the game anyway and the old ticket got me past all the different police checkpoints on the way into the stadium. Then when I had to actually scan the ticket for the ticket takers the ticket predictably failed. I showed it to the ticket takers and they told me what I already knew… that it was fake.
So I stood around for a while thinking they might take pity on me and one lady tried, but they couldn’t do anything so I decided I would sneak in. Everything was completely barbed wire all around. I suppose the locals here are probably more desperate to watch their home team than me. I gave up pretty quickly on sneaking in. I decided I would wander around to all the different entries and try my luck at each one. At the next one I approached, I scanned again and showed them I got scammed and they felt bad, but still, they couldn’t do anything. I wasn’t going to give up. So I just stood there because if I left I definitely wasn’t going to go to the game. I stood there long enough for the ticket takers who saw my fake ticket to bond with me. Then some dude came along and had an extra ticket and the ticket takers immediately yelled for me and the dude with the extra ticket scanned me in all the way into the fan section!!
Worth the price of entry alone…Met some drunk fans who wanted to be friends!
The fan section was absolutely wild! A much different sporting experience than I’ve ever experienced. The fans were singing and bouncing up and down and taking their shirts off. People were shoving and pushing each other in good fun. It was hilarious to just people-watch! The area was actually pretty bad for actually watching the game. I had a lot of fun despite the 0-0 score because the atmosphere was just that fun! At the end, I met a drunk friend group and I took a photo with a girl from their group. They were a lot of fun. What an absolutely wild experience! First, I wasn’t even supposed to be in Buenos Aires and then I bought a fake ticket and I still got in and had this amazing experience! God must watch me sometimes and think, “This idiot…” and then bless me anyway!
We will see what happens next. I’m praying the motorcycle repaired part longshot works out and I can take it easy and finish out the final leg of this journey and make it home for Thanksgiving! God is good!
After a perilous Darian Gap crossing I traveled from the port city of Turbo to Medellin. I spent two nights in Medellin and had a really great time exploring the city while getting some maintenance done on my motorcycle. I got a new rear tire, an oil change, and a chain cleaning. The only real issue I had in Colombia was that I had my bike there illegally the whole time. At Turbo the customs office was closed Friday night when I got there and wouldn’t be open until Monday morning. Medellin was also had a customs office and was the closest location to buy motorcycle insurance. So I figured I would ride dirty to Medellin and get all my maintenance done and then Monday morning I would go to customs and buy insurance. Unfortunately, they could only extend vehicle permits not issue them. They did say it was possible to request the temporary vehicle import online. So I did that knowing that wouldn’t be a fast process. The other option was to drive 6.5hrs back to Turbo to go to customs there and then drive 6.5 hours back to Medellin to buy insurance. 13 hours of uninsured driving and the hassle of backtracking and dealing with customs or continuing illegally 17 hours to the border of Ecuador? Well, I chose Ecuador and fortunately for me I didn’t have any encounters with the Colombian police and I didn’t end up in Colombian jail. I did have the online temporary vehicle import request available to provide any authorities just to show them I at least kind of tried. In the end, it made my Colombian border crossing into Ecuador super quick!
EcuadorPeruvian Construction workers askign for a picture while I fill my tank with my emergency gas can.Camping at a Peru gas stationEcuador
I continued my journey through Ecuador and into Peru without any issues. Through Colombia and Ecuador, I was treated to frequent mountain views. Truly beautiful riding! Through Peru, I got to stare out at the Pacific Ocean as I rode along the coast. Great views, but a lot of wind! Eventually, I took a turn eastward and ended up crossing into Bolivia via Lake Titicaca! I spent one night at high elevation before arriving in La Paz, Bolivia. I spent two nights in La Paz which sits at about 12,000ft. During my first day there I got out and did some exploring in the market squares and I rode the world’s largest cable car system!
Peru coastLa Paz cable carsLa PazLake TiticacaHigh riding through PeruCeviche on the coast in PeruPeru coast
The reason I mention sleeping at high elevation for a couple of nights is because I came to La Paz, Bolivia specifically for a side quest to climb Mt. Huayna Potosi. Huayna Potosi was originally a mountain some friends and I were considering climbing on a South American road trip that had to get canceled due to COVID. I came back for revenge and to climb it in honor of those friends. So for $130 I got myself a 3 day climbing tour with a guide up the mountain that stands at 19,974ft! The $130 included all the meals, lodging, and even the required gear.
The first day of the tour was getting to base camp and for some strange reason instead of staying there another tourist, Robin from the Netherlands, and I went up to the 17,500ft high camp right away on day one. Considering my past negative experiences with elevation sickness in Peru climbing I actually felt pretty good. It wasn’t until the first morning waking up at the high camp that I had a headache or any symptoms of elevation sickness. Getting myself moving and doing some deep breathing got me in a manageable range and made me thankful I chose the 3 day tour to have an extra day to acclimate. The second day we went out with the guide for a couple hours and practiced ice climbing and rappeling which was fun and good to learn some techniques and how to use our equipment. The rest of the day was pretty relaxed.
The day of the climb is more like the night of the climb. The day prior we ate dinner at 5pm and then everyone tried to get as much sleep as nerves would allow. I could not fall asleep at all to start and eventually ended up getting probably 2-3 hours before our midnight wake-up. I woke up at midnight again with a headache and was able to nurse it back down. We got all our gear on and ready and then ate a small breakfast before heading out to the glacier to start. At about 1am we started the ice climbing and slowly trudged up the mountain one foot in front of the other. For the most part, it was just a semi-steep journey through the snow and ice. However, at some points, there were large crevice gaps that needed to be stepped across and sleep ledges that needed to be carefully navigated. Both of those hazards aren’t anything unheard of, but it’s a completely different ball game when you’re physically exhausted from the elevation and your mind isn’t as sharp as it normally is for the same reasons. By God’s grace, I successfully trudged both up and down to summit Huayna Potosi despite some pretty decent elevation sickness.
I will play it by ear to see how much recovery time I need from the climb. After that, I will be back on the road headed south to Uyuni, Bolivia to check out their famous salt flats before making a long push south through Argentina to the end of the continent.
